North Carolina Lawmakers Introduced a Bill to Ban Same-Sex Marriage

On Tuesday, several Republican lawmakers in the North Carolina legislature introduced a bill titled the Uphold Historical Marriage Act, which aims to ban same-sex marriage and make previous same-sex marriages invalid despite a 2015 Supreme Court ruling that gives same-sex couples that right.

If it had been passed. House Bill 780 would declare (http://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article144006904.html) same-sex marriages "null and void" in the state, meaning that future same-sex marriages couldn't happen in the state and previous ones would no longer be legally recognized. The representatives behind its creation, Larry Pittman, Mike Clampitt, Michael Speciale, and Carl Ford, believe that the Supreme Court "overstepped" its constitutional scope in issuing a ruling, WNCN first reported. This is because the state held a special referendum in 2012 in which more than 60 percent of voters supported an amendment in the state constitution that prohibited North Carolina from recognizing or performing same-sex marriage, which the Supreme Court struck down. In addition, the men cite passages from the Bible to back up their claim, including a passage from the book of Genesis that says "a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh."

The bill, if passed, would be clearly unconstitutional because federal rulings override those passed down by any state. "While people legitimately can disagree with the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision, a state legislature cannot overrule the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the federal Constitution," Greg Wallace, a professor of law at Campbell University, told WNCN.

Democratic governor Roy Cooper also showed disdain for the measure. “This bill is wrong,” he tweeted. “We need more LGBT protections, not fewer.”

This isn't the first struggle in North Carolina for LGBTQ rights. In March, the state repealed its controversial "bathroom bill" and signed a similar order into law that bans local governments from creating anti-discrimination legislation until 2020 and gives the state the ability to control who uses which bathrooms. The final push to repeal the original bill came after the NCAA threatened not to host any college sports championship games in the state until 2022 and set a hard deadline for when such a repeal would have to take place.

This post was updated on April 12 at 3:25 p.m. after North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore announced that House Bill 780 would not be heard.